BurnTheWitch

So this is more of a thought exercise than anything else, but it sounds like a neat idea to try! My apologies if this has been brought up in the recent past, I couldn't think of how to word searches for the topic. I was speaking with some mates the other day and in our discussion the concept of the “ideal dungeon team” came up. This is not a concept related strictly to CoH, but I’ll explain the concept through the lens of CoH. Most content in the game is designed to accommodate 8 players (there are larger raids, and SBB takes four, but I digress). This means that if there are 8 like-minded people who would like to clear all content as a group (from DFB to four star hard mode content), it could be done with those same players. A static number is quite common in MMO design and we all hate it when there is not a consistent number of people allowed in “non-raid” content. Imagine if each TF had a different max number of players, not great. With the fact that there are 8 heroes/ villains possible in each of these, we can ask the question that some of you have already seen coming. If you were building a team of 8 heroes/villains to complete all 8 person content in the game, what would you pick? I’m not asking for a Razor’s edge min/maxed set of builds by any means, just some ideas as to what you consider a valid group for the assignment. In a perfect world, I’d like to avoid mirror builds, as that’s a little bland, but I can't see why anything else should be off the table. NOTE: Yes, I realize that anyone can do any content (or close to any content), but let’s accept the reality that a team of 6 masterminds, a sentinel, and a fire/rad Brute to tank might have some challenges trying to finish later content compared to a well balanced group. For the sake of argument, let's assume "official" content only. There is some incredibly interesting and challenging AE content, but I'll leave that alone for now. Thoughts?

Love this, although my French is pretty bad these days, and certainly not strong enough to do anything well . . I would think Ghost widow = Araignee Fantome (widow in this case is referring to a black widow spider, so I feel that just using spider is better here.)

Wow, that's one heck of a great question that has so many complex answer. Here comes my overly long and pointless answer. . .you were warned. The game is one of the few that can be both frantic or chill based on what you want to do. If I'm looking for a frantic run about experience, I can start of a speed run Yin taskforce and see if we can do it in under 12 minutes. it almost feels like an action race game when there are 8 people all trying to get to the next trigger (this partially echoes @tidge first point, we know what triggers do what on most/all of the common content). If I'm looking for a chill time while I watch Taskmaster on Youtube, I can fire farm or run missions on a mastermind that is specifically designed to be pretty hands off. Many have said this, but customizability is insane in this game. One of the biggest MMOs out there has 13 classes, another has 22. even with the different specs, that tops out around 50 or so different character playstyles. CoH has . . .2500 or so, haven't done the math with the new additional powersets. This is just the customization of the technical aspects of your character. I have characters who are Cowboys Aliens A nuclear powered robot who gain sentience and found a Laser sword. Cyberpunk cop from the future A Samurai from the past A modern scientist who researches dark matter A Victorian occultist who can control lighting That's a pretty wide range of concepts, and no matter how weird or clever i am, someone in my group is so much better! What a great price. I donate to the server when I can, but it still costs less than other games these days because it's not a cash mall designed to bleed you dry like a Las Vegas casino. Third space? I guess so. I'm a pretty gregarious person by nature, but this game often fulfills a need that many people don't realize they have. Have you ever gone to a movie theatre even though you weren't stoked about the movie you were going to see? You just wanted to be around people so you didn't feel isolated, but you also don't want to be required to engage in many social norms. People go to bars and casinos for this purpose. They sit down at the bar on the end or at a blackjack table and play minimum bets, all the while they listen and basically people watch. America (I am speaking from an American perspective on this) doesn't have much of a cafe culture, heck we don't even Fika, so that ability to be in a social place but not be social is hard to find and often quite expensive. This might be the Lake Wobegon effect, but people here are, on average, nicer than average. I've heard people call this game strategic versus tactical and I like that. While I'm likely contradicting my first reason a tad, this is a game that doesn't require much in the terms of twitch reflexes. That's a big bonus for the getting older person that I am. TLDR; lots of reasons. Their like piranhas, one isn't enough, but there are a lot more than one.

As always, @Spaghetti Betty showing how it is done. I wanted to ask about the choice of soul mastery in this build. Is there a particular reason you went with Gloom and Dark Obliteration, or would Mu Mastery suit the build just as well and you made a stylistic/ preferential choice?

Preach! If you want to play a defender to 50 solo. . I just feel (doesn't make it true) that corrupting ia the way to go. I digress. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’m any kind of expert on defenders, I have one and it’s dark/dark, so really a deftroller of sorts with the current build out. My wife is the defender fiend so I’ve consulted her for more balanced opinions. That being said. . . I never had any difficulty with endurance compared to other archetypes. Sure, I ran out of endurance, 1st, 2nd, and 4th mission if Yin come to mind, but that has everything to do with freakshow and nothing to do with being a defender. The build was not good. I have exemplared her down to do another Yin and it was completely different now that a proper build with some attuned stuff in some slots and a few IOs that are still working at that level. No endurance issues. More testing data- Just finished a Yin with my wife, she played her FF/Ice defender, no issues with endurance and we were racing through it as fast as we could to see what we could make happen(finished in about 15 minutes.) . I'll have her run on another one, but I'm confident of the results. Her defenders are rather expensive builds, this may be a factor I cannot account for. You might be wondering why I’m using Yin as the benchmark? You said level 20-25 and I don’t like Citadel as much. I'd love so see a screen shot of your build, because I'm just baffled as to why you might be having issues. Doesn't even have to be a mids download build. I can make it in mids from the screen shot.

This has proven a bit more challenging that I expected. I'm not in love with the build, but it should be a good template to work with. The numbers are also (understandably) not 100% correct as Mids has not updated based on the beta test info. I would be perfectly happy for other people with more expertise look this over and make revisions as I Feel there are improvements to be made, but I'm not seeing them in the time I have this weekend. TW.Dark Brute.mbd

I'm at work right now, but i'll try to edit this post with a build when I am home this weekend. What are you looking for in terms of a build? Do you intend to solo, group a ton or a mix of both? I hate asking this but how much do you want to spend? There isn't much point in me using every winter set and fancy goodies if you're looking to spend 200m. Are there any travel powers you prefer/ hate. Do you have a paragon power preference? All being said, I'm really interested in how the changes to cloak of fear affect the overall build, so let's give it a whirl.

What do I consider the natural pairing, great question with some great possibilities for introspect. Here are my thought although they are complete opinions and therefor mean nothing to anyone but myself. I agree with you for the most part, our logics might be different, but we ended up with similar answers. Bio Armor = Savage Melee Bio. Natural evolution or strange experiments, either way it feels like something that is a literal freak of nature. I can see 100% a case for the logic of spines, but Spines feels niche to me on so many levels and savage just feels more open ended. Invulnerability = Super Strength This evokes so many heroes in popular media that it's uncanny. Superman, Hulk, and Juggernaut come to mind almost instantly as characters in media who would be Invulnerability/ Super Strength. Shield Defense = Broadsword, Mace, or Axe Shield isn't actually that common in popular media, it's just that one guy with the rank of captain is a major Marvel Hero. There aren't a ton of other superheroes that aren't related to Cap that use a shield. Wonder woman has one sometimes, I think. Black Knight might have used a shield at some point. For me, shield means medieval (or older) warrior. Think Vikings, Romans and Jaguar Warriors. Those guys use shields, and your hero was blessed by one of their gods with immortality. Time to become a hero. Super Reflexes = Dual Blades Dual blades looks fast, super reflexes is fast. let's pair it with super speed and make it a speedster that literally wins by wearing their opponents out. I can see a strong rational for Martial Arts or even street Justice, but I'm using street justice next and Dual Blades just looks so fast. Will Power = Street Justice Street Justice is untrained brawling, willpower isn't a superpower, it's just the lack of quit. Those two just feel like the guy who decided to go out one day and fight crime. The titular One Punch Man started as WP/SJ and ended as SS/Inv, but he would have been a more interesting character from a traditional comic story at the beginning. Just my 2 inf

I think that I speak for a large number of people when I say, "you can't go wrong, pick what interests you. . . Yadda yadda yadda." That being said, if you want to pick up where you left off, that is certainly an option. I'm personally a hugh fan of my Dark/Dark troller, so my vote will go there. I will warn that the damage was lacking until she was geared, but she is lockdown and a great addition to any team. Her soloability exists now, but I remember almost abandoning soloing in the mid 20's (she was not gifted piles of enhancements, that should be noted.) Until she was geared up. Now I will say that Dark/ Fire sounds like a combo win, although I've never played the combo.

To quote @Spaghetti Betty from a different thread. Generally, you want to take everything in TW. Defensive Sweep is skippable. A case can be made to drop Titan Sweep as well if something else is desired, but it's still a solid attack for levelling. Crushing Blow will always be your quickest attack outside of Momentum, so if you ever drop Momentum and Build Momentum isn't up, you should use Crushing Blow. As far as what to do after Crushing Blow, just do whatever! Inside momentum, you have 2 ST attacks and 3 AoEs, so this should be pretty self explanatory. Arc of Destruction has the best DPA out of the AoEs, so if you need something else to do for ST, just use that. Definitely consider picking up some epic powers to fill in the gaps! Since you have a lot of recharge boosting at your disposal (nearly every power can take an FF proc), Gloom fits nicely here, and you can even double dip for Dark Obliteration! I've followed this advice on my TW/Elec tanker and I gotta say, that's good advice. I didn't do anything too outrageous with my slotting, I focused on survivability vis set bonuses. My tanking philosophy is that survival comes first, so while the damage is actually pretty solid on AOE, the single target is only fine. Depending on your budget, toy can squeeze some pretty outstanding defense and resists out of set bonuses, which is how i would likely build it. YMMV

My gut tells me that you are correct in that Yin is the way to go. The final fight with Clamor might get hairy if someone decides to hit all four computers too early, but I can't imagine any other issues really.

This. I find farming quite relaxing. If I have 20 minutes I'll hop on my farmer and make a quite 5m or so while I watch a few youtube vids. I seldom do it in long stretches (excepting that I have definitly farmed to help a friends alt to 50 in a pinch), because if I have a lot of time, I'll do more traditional things.

So i'll also toss in my 2 inf although my experience is with my wife's ff/ice defender. I don't play it, but I play with it all the time. It becomes more and more powerful as more people join the party. People notice how little damage they are taking. Sometimes this makes people ask agressive and other times it makes people foolishly agressive, but the fields mixed with her added dps are very strong. Solo, yeah, no. Deflection and insulation don't help you, so two of your core powers don't help you there. In a pair, it affects half of the group. In a group of 8, it affects 87% of the party. Your not getting great utility out of your signature powers. This is a great summation of your problem as I see it. TL;DR If you are interested in leveling and running TFs like it's a hobby, the FF is great. Some tanks become next to impenatrable (I'm guessing SR tankers care less about it than resist tanks). If you want to level solo or as a pair, there are likely better options.

Figured I'd raise this necro thread as it's more useful for people in the future to find one thread on the topic that has tons of information as opposed to a bunch of threads saying, "help me with this build that is virtually identical to that build in the other thread!" If I've learned anything about the way I build, it's that I spend too much effort on defense at the cost of offence. I also tend to ignore the reality that I tend to play with other people who will have buffs. Such is the nature of Mids, it cannot tell you who you are going to be playing with. This means that I end up with a nut that is really tough to crack, but doesn't always hit too hard. Any suggestions on what I should change from this build? It's quite tough with an expected Toxic and Neg hole, but I'm already over capped on many resists, meaning any more from buffs is wasted. What would the wise folk here change? Thunder Titan.mbd

Says the witch! 😄

We missed you. I think you'll find that not only is the game much, if not exactly like you remember it. You'll also find that the people here are pretty dsrn nice folks.

I bring you back from the grave in the form of undeath. For those who are searching for a Dark / Dark Build on the search engines and come across this thread (I did), here are some of the builds mentioned above in a mids format. Voltak's Haunt Build This one is a bit more difficult, as we're going to get rid of Midnight grasp as well (trying to have no reason to go into Melee). This means we rely a fair bit more on our patron powers for some damage and it's a little lacking at lower levels for exemplar purposes. Keep in mind the PbAOE still requires you to be near the action. Voltak's No Melee Build Voltak's haunt build - Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault).mbd Voltak's no Melee build - Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault).mbd

Thanks so much for all of this insight. We often forget things like animation time unless when know a Powerset well. Do you think the ice elemental is worth it from a DPS perspective? I was never sold on the power but couldn't really figure out what else to place there.

This is a pretty good idea. I've posted some junk recipes on the AH for 1 inf and they don't move. My original theory wad someone might want them to make for badges, but it turns out they're likely overflowing with them too. Sounds like it's time to turn off common drops for a while for me too.

I told her to go corruptor, but it's her toon and she has decided it will be a defender (I'm certain she'll play a corruptor at some point, not like there is a real toon limit). She's currently just picking powers that look interesting and goofing off as she shoots things in Task Forces, but I suspect she will be level 50 reasonably quickly, she is level 19 as of this morning and made the character 2 days ago. Whatever we build here will most certainly be her second spec and used for high level content exclusively, mostly level 50 but maybe a Manticore Taskforce or the like, If she exemplars down, there will be a different spec for that as those have a different set of demands. That's an interesting thought, I've never actually tried to run about long term with mystic flight but no hover. Does this work for you as I would think movement would be. . spongy? Is that the word? I'd be keen to have her try it, guess we're doing a test tonight and see if she likes it. Thanks for the Idea!

I think the title pretty much sums up my situation. My wife has decided that she wants to be a FF / Ice defender. She is of interested in being a "Sentinel with buffs", (thanks to @MonteCarla for delivering that concept to us). The big asks on her part are. Hover and Fly, she really likes those two skills and I'm not going to tell her she's wrong. This is going to be a character that spends 80%+ of it's time in a group, act like it. Keep the leadership trio unless there are major gains to be made elsewhere. An ST rotation that isn't super complicated, i don't think this will be difficult, but I don't know Ice well enough to judge. The Epic power pool is still open but I went with Ice for Frozen Armor and Hoarfrost (and look at all that AOE DEF we squeezed out of it). All That being said, I've never built a defender before. I'm not actually good at build as well. What changes would the experts recommend? My concerns in no particular order Am sacrificing too much for DEF? RES is pretty low and I'm concerned that when she does get hit, it will gack her in one shot. I might be overly concerned, she's a perfectly competent player who has too much experience in MMOs, she can avoid fire. This build won't work well exemplared below 30, so we'll have to use a second build for that, not a big deal. Build up and Ice elemental are only there to fill out powers, what else would be useful instead of those, they aren't doing much with that pathetic slotting. holy guts the end issues she is going to have, she'll kill me! That should be first on the list. Are the attack powers I've picked the "right" ones. 3 ST and 3 AOE attacks seems sufficient, but I'm far from an expert, more of an aspiring apprentice) Thanks for your time and consideration. Force Blizzard.mbd

Man, I am too long winded. . . Incoming. . . Sure, I'm likely too positive about this game. Let's do some math. From the article If I had to pick one set of MMOs where this comes up a lot, it’s Kickstarter MMOs, and I think there’s an obvious reason for it: Once people have skin (money) in the game and have made it part of their identity, they feel obligated to defend it because they’re really defending their own choices. This is a sunk cost fallacy, I could write an article about cryptocurrency by taking this one and changing the names of MMOs to various meme coins and it would still be accurate. Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): There is most definitely an easy answer in Star Citizen, but I’ve also felt a bit of this toxic positivity – or at least something near enough – out of the folks who get behind City of Heroes: Homecoming quite a bit. Apparently a game that old and run by players absolves it of all sins to some people. Nope, It just absolves it of sins like dated graphics and things that the current Dev team had nothing to do with. I can still hate on the original Devs for the oddity that is the incarnate system. How much am I paying the Devs again? See point 1 and show some appreciation. I do habitat for humanity and you'd better believe that no one has ever complained about a house we built for them, even if they didn't like the flooring. In Conclusion Yep, clickbait article that isn't saying much, much less understanding what it is saying.

Sorry for the delay in response, but noobs need to think more to give quality responses. I happen to like your build quite a bit, I'd certainly give it a try as you favor the same powers i do. I really also respect @Uun and built this based on your build with their suggestions. The things I did different are. . I personally prefer Soul over Mu Mastery, this does keep you in the negative damage sphere. I can't see why you couldn't, or shouldn't swap out dark consumption, embrace and obliteration for Power Sink, Charged Armor, and Ball Lightning. I really love Hover and it's pretty tough to convince me to drop it, I would be inclined to drop Fly first. The things I am not happy with in my mock up Sure would like room for a kismet +6%, I am just unable to find it I'd like more knockback protection, a Steadfast Protection on fade could replace a Reactive Defense, but we lose some defense in the process. Thanks for your time, and good luck! Witchcraft Dark-Dark-Soul.mbd

So I'm the last person who should be giving advice on building a blaster, but I believe you would have much better luck in the blaster forums. Some tips to getting help on a great build that I've picked up is as follows. Post a build that you think might be good. It likely won't be, my first was god awful, and making buikds from scratch is still a big weakness of mine, but at least you have a starting point for others to work with. Explain what you are trying to do. Some people who have been a great help to me solo 90% of the time, and others tend to only group. They would give you different builds, so you telling them how you intend to play matter a lot. How much are you willing to spend on a build? We all want that super duper mega toon that costs thousands of merits not to mention the inf, but not everyone is interested in that grind. Ask "why". When someone posts a build that you are looking at and you don't understand why it is better, ask. People are pretty nice here and want you to be better, you understanding why something is good will help you help other in the future. Not everything is obvious if you don't understand finer points of the game (I sure don't). Have a great evening and good luck finding the perfect build to fit your needs!

I definitely intend to have my second spec be designed with exemplar in mind, as the ones we've been discussing have certainly been with late game content in mind. I'd love so hear peoples opinions on a build that is designed for the purpose. This is my noob showing hard here as I really don't have a grasp on the finer points of the game. I'm looking over each build side by side and I'm not certain why it makes for a better build in a team. It looks to have better AOE damage, but it really appears to drop a lot of single target single target DPS and survivability. Am I interpreting the data wrong or is the data not the whole story?